Lucky One
by jalana
Summary: A look at the Rain of Death from a different perspective.


**For those who attempted to read this previously, sorry...for some reason, the story didn't upload properly! Anyway, on with the story...**  
  
  
  
Lucky One  
  
by jalana  
  
The cacophony created by laser fire and the screaming mob was deafening. As he was pushed along with the crowd, he looked around wildly for his little sister. Just as he caught sight of her tear-streaked face on the other side of the street, a shadow fell over the mob and a large boot came crashing down. He cried out in horror as his sister disappeared underneath the giant boot, while overhead, maniacal laughter sounded from the Zentradi who had just killed his sister...  
  
Jack jerked upright, sweat streaming from his pores. He gasped for breath, heart pounding frantically, and looked around his tiny room. 'It was just a dream,' he thought in relief. Jack untangled himself from the bedsheets and walked over to the window. He stared intently at the SDF-1 in the middle of the lake, brightly lit against the dark sky. As the nightmare began to fade, Jack shook his head in disgust. 'What's wrong with you, Matthews,' he berated himself silently. 'Nightmares about the big, bad Zentradi?'  
  
It had been over two years since the SDF-1 landed back on Earth, two years since the Rain of Death. The war was over, and now Zentradi and humans were working side by side to rebuild what was destroyed. At seventeen years of age, Jack Matthews considered himself one of the lucky ones, to have survived the Rain of Death. He had been only fifteen that deadly day, reluctantly baby-sitting his eight year old sister while his mom ran errands. Angry at his mother for forcing him to take care of Sarah, Jack purposely disregarded her strict instructions to stay at home. "Come on Sarah," he had said, grabbing her little hand in his. "We're going for a walk."  
  
It was that fateful walk that had saved both Jack and Sarah. When fire began to rain from the sky, and buildings collapsed in the distance, Jack's first instinct was to go underground. Remembering the old sewer system he and his friends had explored when they were younger, he picked Sarah up and ran for shelter. Jack managed to keep his sister calm, while outside the sewers he could hear loud explosions and people screaming in terror and pain. After things had been quiet for a long time, he finally got up enough courage to look outside. What he saw stunned him. The town Jack had grown up in was gone. The apartment building he had lived in was now nothing more than a pile of rubble in the middle of the ruined town. The streets were littered with debris and loose rock...and dead bodies. There were no sounds, no signs of life, coming from any of the demolished buildings. Jack began to run down the street frantically, shouting for his parents. "Mom! Dad!" he screamed, as tears leaked from his eyes. Brushing them away angrily, he continued to shout, "Where are you? DON'T LEAVE US ALONE! WHERE ARE YOU?!?!"  
  
"Mommy!" Sarah's terrified cry cut through his near hysteria, and he stopped in the middle of the street. Hurrying back to his sister, Jack forced a shaky smile onto his face. He crouched down and took her in his arms, hugging her to him fiercely. "I want Mommy!" Sarah wailed, her small body shaking with great sobs.  
  
"Everything will be okay, shortstuff," he whispered in her ear, "You'll see. Don't cry now, Sarah. I'm sure Mom and Dad..." His voice fading, Jack blinked away hot tears. Taking deep breaths to control the nausea he could feel rising in his throat, he stood up slowly with Sarah still clutched in his arms. "I'm sure we'll find them..."  
  
As he stood there with Sarah crying in his arms, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Too dazed to even feel surprise, Jack slowly turned around and saw a middle-aged man with blood soaking through a makeshift bandage around his arm. The man had bright red hair that was muted by grime. "We've already searched everywhere, kid." the man told him. "There's only us left." Jack looked at him in disbelief, then peered around him and saw a distressingly small group of people. The man shook his head despondently. "We're all that's left, kid," he repeated in a flat voice. "There's not much food or water, and everyone else is dead. A town population of 25,000 and only twelve people left." He shook his head again, raising a cloud of dirt particles from his red hair.  
  
Jack turned away from his bedroom window. 'Without Sean O'Malley, he mused, Sarah and I would most certainly have died.' Everyone had heard the loud rumble from the sky when the SDF-1 had come crashing down to earth, but it was Sean, the man with the red hair, who had kept his wits and managed to spot the ship far in the distance. It was Sean who had led the ragtag group of survivors toward the ship on foot. It was Sean who had shared his meager water rations with the two children and helped to carry Sarah on their long trek. Without any water, the group had been dehydrated and exhausted when they finally reached their destination. Once they had recovered, Sean had taken the two orphans under his care, and provided for them the best he could. He held the two children at night when the nightmares began. He helped them get over their grief for their lost parents, and gave them the means to begin new lives. Sean had taken it upon himself to formally adopt Jack and Sarah, and the three of them had managed to become even closer over the past year.  
  
Jack crossed the room to his desk and picked up the framed photograph of his small family taken last Christmas. He sighed, then put down the picture. The Zentradi riots last month in New Portland had everyone tense. 'Maybe that's why I had that nightmare,' he thought. He turned back to his rumpled bed. The red numbers from the clock on his night table seemed to glare at him. 3:27 AM. Jack sighed again as he realized, from experience, that it would take awhile for him to fall back asleep. 'After all this time, you would think I would be able to shake off a stupid nightmare!' He smiled wryly, then decided to check up on Sarah in the next room.  
  
Opening her door just a crack, Jack saw that Sarah was still sleeping soundly. 'At least I didn't disturb her.' He went back to his room and crawled into bed. As he slowly drifted back to sleep, Jack drowsily smiled. 'Yup, I'm one of the lucky ones.'  
  
  
  
Notes:  
  
1) Yay! The story uploaded perfectly! ^_^  
  
2) Obviously, this story is based on the assumption that there were survivors of the Rain of Death...if that is wrong, oh well. That's why this is FAN fiction...  
  
3) Comments/suggestions are welcome! 


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